If you have the time and inclination, there is no better gift than a homemade one, preferably one the recipient can devour. For our holiday episode, we exchanged recipes for foods you can make and package to give to your loved ones, friends or as delightful host gifts this season. How could we choose between everything bagel seasoning or the blue cheese log with pistachio dukkah and honey? (spoiler: we couldn't)

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Our Instagram, @recipechallengepod

It's the end of October and Halloween is coming up fast. Hopefully you've made the most of the season with visits to orchards, pumpkin patches and, yes, Octoberfests! This month we challenged ourselves to create some traditional Octoberfest treats: German Apfelkuchen and Austrian  kaiserschmarrn (shredded pancake). Find out which treat made us raise up our beer steins and say, "Prost!"

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Can you make restaurant-worthy food at home? The internet sure thinks so! This month we take on the takeout fakeout challenge and make recipes that taste like restaurant faves: the Outback Steakhouse Bloomin' Onion and Cheesecake Factory's avocado egg rolls. It's a lot of hot oil, people! Which fried app earns the prize and which one caused a big ol' mess? Plus, Restoration Hardware has a restaurant?

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Sure, you can churn ice cream in your fancy churning machine. Or you can use a hand mixer or a blender, put it in a loaf pan, and call it a day. This month we exchanged recipes for no-churn ice cream for less fuss during the hottest weeks of summer. Which flavor won the contest: salted caramel coconut or maple walnut? Plus, the new foods at this year's MN State Fair.

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Our Instagram, @recipechallengepod

Bisquick, a baking mix sold by General Mills under its Betty Crocker brand, hit store shelves in 1931. While it was first promoted as a fast and easy way to make biscuits, it wasn't long before it was being used to make any number of baked good and recipes, like pancakes, cookies, and impossible pies. What's an impossible pie? Listen to this latest episode to find out as we put Peppered Bacon Hash Brown Pie up against Impossible Blue Cheese Club Sandwich Pie.

Links for the episode:

Our Instagram, @recipechallengepod

It's Rebecca's birthday month and we celebrated by making Jell-O shots! One recipe is for a minty mojito shot and the other a festive piña colada , complete with cherry on top. But when one doesn't set, does the other one win the match? PLUS: BuzzBallz take over the world and a follow-up to last episode's better-than-sex cake... Are you ready for better-than-sex-with-Nixon cake??

Links for the episode:

Our Instagram, @recipechallengepod

Can a cake be better than sex? Can it be better than anything? Even Robert Redford? Based on the thousands of online recipes (and variations) for Better-Than-Sex Cake, the answer is yes! This month, we exchanged recipes for this popular poke cake—one for the "classic" version and the other for a peanut butter variation—to find out which cake/syrup/pudding/whipped cream combination got our pulses racing. And what does all this have to do with Watergate Salad and Richard Nixon?

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In anticipation of a trip to Texas, Rebecca chose Tex-Mex for this month's theme. What exactly is Tex-Mex? Well, it's not Texas’ version of Mexican food. Instead, it's a cuisine derived from the traditional ranch cooking of South Texas back when Texas and Mexico were a part of the same colony. In this episode, we put Marcela Valladolid's chicken enchiladas up against Josef Centeno’s carne guisada. Which dish will have us running when the dinner bell rings?

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Après-ski refers to social activity after a day's skiing. What this really means is eating, drinking, and talking smart while wearing snow pants and a colorful sweater. In this episode, we traded recipes for hot-tails worthy of skiing spots like Aspen, Park City, and Stowe. Our booze of choice was rum, but do we like it hot and buttered or creamy and chocolatey?

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To see photos of our hot-tails, follow us on Instagram: @recipechallengepod

Want to talk recipes or have suggestions for future themes? Email us:

It's 2025, it's January, and it's cold. Time for some hot soup. In this episode, we put Ina Garten's Creamy Tomato Bisque up against Creamy Chicken and Mushroom Soup from Bon Appetit. Are we living in a post-saffron world? What kind of white wine do you use for cooking? We discuss all this and reveal which soup warmed not just our stomachs but also our hearts.

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To see photos of our soups and to share your opinion on saffron, follow us on Instagram: @recipechallengepod

Want to talk recipes or have suggestions for future themes? Email us: